My Chemical Romance - 02.07.07

When writing The Black Parade were your influences different as opposed to when you wrote the first two?

Yeah, it was really cool because on the first record I didn't join the band maybe 2-3 weeks before we were actually going to record. It was less time to actually be writing with the entire band, so I was kind of impartial to what was going on, or playing things that were already there. Going into Three Cheers we had even more time. With the writing process we still all collaborated, but wrote in a different place with different members of course. This record we wrote on the road, on two different coasts, and a lot of it was written in the studio. We would have skeletons and song structure and go in and perfect the different parts, and that was pretty new to us. We also tracked it pretty much in order it appears on the record and that was a brand new thing for us, too.

What was the transition like from writing Three Cheers to The Black Parade?

For us it was a real natural progression. I think that we grew a lot in the past year from writing Three
Cheers. We lived probably like 8 lifetimes, we saw the world and we did a lot of things in that short period of time. When we went into the studio and started to write The Black Parade we had written the follow up to Three Cheers and scrapped it, and then wrote the follow up to that record. So when writing it just seemed natural even though itís a huge step, I think.

What inspired you to make The Black Parade a concept album?

Well, it was actually something we've been doing for quite a while. With the first record we kind of had concept songs, you know? We took one of the songs, being the last song off the record and kind of ran with that for Three Cheers, and kind of expanded upon the story. Three Cheers was more of a loosely based concept, but it was a concept all the same. When we set out to do The Black Parade-- it was kind of a concept to do a more tightly written story. It was something we've always liked to do; songwriting and storytelling was something thatís been an aid to us.

Did you find it easiest to write/record The Black Parade?

It's weird. I think that aspects of it were easier. For this record we had more opportunities and things
at our disposal. We had more time definitely, and we had a great producer that let us go out and explore different things. We had a great new drummer that was our first time writing/recording a record with and that was amazingly easy, like just the writing part and stuff like that. Some of the songs we had to go through, that we wrote and the emotions we had to go through to achieve those songs was really hard. I think the journey to arrive at those songs was hard, but the actual recording of it was a lot easier, because it was a real supportive environment as opposed to some of the other things we've done. I mean some of the other records were really rushed and Rob Cavallo just brings this supportive feel to a record, so it was great to have him.

Is there a specific reason you chose Rob Cavallo to produce The Black Parade?

Yes, the specific reason is I don't think this record could have been done by anybody else. I know that's a real broad, specific reason, but when you meet him you really understand that heís a genius, he really is; heís so smart, heís incredible. I mean just musically, I've never met anyone like him. Like I said before he's just really supportive of what you want to do and he nurtures people expressing themselves in different ways. When we met him and we saw the way he felt about the songs, there was just no other choice.

Was The Rise And Fall Of My Chemical Romance ever intended to be the CD title or was it one you threw around as a tentative title?

It was one of those things where we joked around about it. It was a way we'd refer to it with each other, it was kind of like an inside joke. Somebody said it to someone else and it was kind of funny when we found out that people were thinking that was the actual title; that was really funny. It was also a code paying homage to David Bowie. It kind of shaped the way we thought about the record of having an alter ego, so that was cool.

How many songs were written for the album?

When we were touring for Three Cheers we wrote, I'd say probably 10-12 songs and we scrapped almost all them, and then we went in to write for this record and we wrote I think 22 songs, and we recorded I guess 14? We wrote a ton of songs for this record.

Have you selected the next single yet?

We thought we did. We discussed it again and we were like "I don't know, maybe it should be this", and now we're going back and forth. I will say this, we're going to be filming a video shortly and I don't know if it's going to be the next single over seas. I think we've narrowed it down. I'll say that we've narrowed it down.

Recently you've expressed interest in playing The Black Parade in its entirety. Is it too soon for that?

I actually talked to Gerard about this last night. I don't know if itís too soon for that. I'll defiantly say we're discussing it. It might be really rad and it's something I'm really excited about doing; itís definitely a possibility.

Which song off the new album are you most eager to play that hasn't been played yet?

Since I'm sick and they're actually playing in Australia right now, I'm home. We had prepared Sleep and they're playing it and itís going over great. I canít wait to play it with them. So definitely Sleep
and I would like to do Disenchanted. So yeah, I would like to do Disenchanted and Sleep.

Any special theatrics planed for this tour?

Yeah. Right now we're going over what the stage set up is going to be and what elements of the record we're going to try to show. As far as giving specifics on that, I don't want to give to many specifics because we're still in the developing stages of it, even though itís really close. We just want to make sure its perfect and I don't want to give anything away because when you see the show you're definitely going to be taken on a journey. We're going to try to visually represent what we went through musically on the record.

What made you decide on Rise Against and Muse as tour support?

Theyíre just some of our favorite bands right now. I think Rise Against is an amazing band, we've enjoyed them for quite a long time and we were on Warped Tour with them for a couple of years. I think they're such an important band because they really have something to say; and as far as music goes, how could you not want to tour with a band of that caliber? They're one of those bands that you watch and you enjoy, but get so angry because they're so good. It's hard to understand how a band can be that good. I think its going to be a great package.

Are there still plans to tour for 2 years in support of The Black Parade?

I don't know, maybe. I think right now we just have our sights set on the U.S. tour. We have a few
European shows we're really excited about. I think it's a little too far in the future for us to be thinking about right now.

Any other big tour plans for this year?

Yeah, actually we're really concentrating on our headlining tour, and then weíre talking about doing
some other tours coming up. I'm not sure if thatís going to come to fruition, but I hope so.

Uh, AP staff, whoever edits these interview posts needs to keep an eye out for this type of stuff.

I believe it is Frank Iero because he talks about joining MCR a little late in the interview. I just watched some of their "Life on the Murder Scene" DVD yesterday (I checked it out from the library, how cool is that?) and they talked a little about Frank joining MCR something like two days before they recorded the first album.

BTW if anyone is indifferent to MCR because you don't like the guys or the music, I encourage you to check out their DVD (see above). If anything you come away with a respect for the guys as hard working and lucky to catch a break (reminds me of FOB). I liked "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" but I'm really digging "The Black Parade".

ok they really need to tell you who they are interviewing because it gets really aggrevating wondering who it is, ive noticed this in a lot of their interviews and ive only seen 2-3 interviews that say who is being interviewed and i also see a lot of people posting "who is this" who'd they interview" and so on.but if your going to interview someone you should at least say which PERSON it is , not just the band.